This study investigates the way a kindergarten teacher implemented a three-stage project to support children's map understanding. The project, the Map and Play, was designed to help children understand the relationship between reality and its abstract representation. The guided play was adopted as the pedagogical approach because it empowers…

This article presents explorations of co-choreographing the early years dance pedagogical settings through dialogical and intra-active approaches in the context of artistic research. It discusses how to choreograph the pedagogical settings in such a manner, that the distribution of the artistic agency would become more equal, and the complex…

The Merdeka Belajar curriculum is the current curriculum developed by the Indonesian Ministry of Education, which should be implemented thoroughly in 2024. Project-based learning is identically engaged with this curriculum, which offers many advantages to enrich the quality of education. This method has been promoted and implemented in several…

Inspired by Sheldrake's study of fungi [Sheldrake, M. 2020. "Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures." London: Penguin Random House] and Barad's idea of entanglement [Barad, K. 2007. "Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning." Durham:…

This article explores the usefulness of detective role-play as a research method to facilitate young children's critical thinking. The study examines four specifically designed detective play experiences, adopting an ethical rights-based approach to research with children. This qualitative multiple-case study is grounded in play-based pedagogy…

Early educators' perceptions of play and learning influence whether they adopt responsive roles to facilitate learning in play. While studies have investigated perceptions of play as pedagogical practice and its perceived relevance for learning, few have also interrogated educator learning perceptions, and hence compared these perceptions. This…

Purpose: Being "literate" is well established as key to active civic participation, right from the earliest years of life. Young children's natural curiosity and motivation to understand the world and their places within it through playful explorations offers rich opportunities for learning. Reported here are findings from a STEAM…

When thinking of early childhood STEM, images of active, play-based design challenges, experiences with robotics/coding, or hands-on experiences with open-ended materials (e.g., balls, ramps, loose parts) often come to mind. While these are certainly images that align with developmentally appropriate early childhood STEM practices, some of the…

This project report describes a playful approach to teaching copyright through a newly developed game entitled Copyright Dough. As copyright literacy has become increasingly important in scholarly communication, this paper explores how a more engaging teaching method is essential for getting researchers, students, academics, and library staff to…

This study presents the research that Pramling Samuelsson's keynote at the 32nd annual EECERA conference in Brighton 2024 drew upon. The study addresses an important but understudied feature of early childhood education and care for sustainability (ECECfS), namely engaging children in prospective or what-if thinking. Our reasoning is founded on…

Current models of education are less effective at developing the skills needed for individuals to thrive in this Information Age and beyond. One way to adapt education for current times is through what the authors call Active Playful Learning (APL), a pedagogical framework that is evidence-based, practical, and uniquely co-designed with scientists…

In this study, we aimed to develop an active play learning model to enhance cognitive thinking skills in elementary school students. We employed a qualitative research methodology, targeting health and physical education teachers from schools in Suphan Buri Province in Thailand. We collected data through individual surveys and indepth interviews…

The paper outlines the design of a LEGO Serious Play (LSP)-based undergraduate management module delivered to a diverse group of students, and consequently evaluates the LSP workshops. It argues for the importance of participatory and co-creational approaches to management education, and demonstrates that LSP is a method that has the potential to…

The authors conduct a broad, cross-cultural review of the literature in fields such as psychology, education, speech-language pathology, early intervention, and library science concerned with board games and learning in young children. They include experimenter-developed and commercial board games and children's learning in mathematics, science,…

Drawing on sociocultural theorizing, this case study investigates and unpacks the qualities of "scientific play" during children's inquiry-based science activities framed by imagination and play (i.e. Poetry Science). The data were gathered in Finnish preschool groups with children aged five to six years old (N: 31) over a five-week…